Diabetes awareness picks up throughout state in March

Nationwide ‘Diabetes Alert Day’ on March 26

MARQUETTE – There are 292,000 Michigan residents who have diabetes. Diabetes Alert Day is March 26 and is a nationwide, one-day wake-up call to inform the American public about the seriousness of diabetes.

In support of Diabetes Alert Day, the National Diabetes Education Program and the U.P. Diabetes Outreach Network are encouraging people to find out if they are at risk for type 2 diabetes. If left undiagnosed or untreated, diabetes can lead to serious health problems including heart disease, stroke, blindness, kidney disease, amputation, and even death.

Many serious health problems run in families, including diabetes. If you have a mother, father, brother or sister with type 2 diabetes, you have a higher chance of developing the disease. Understanding your family’s history of diabetes can help you take action now to prevent or delay the development of this deadly and disabling condition.

Other risk factors for type 2 diabetes include being overweight or obese, physically inactive, and over the age of 45. Diabetes is also more common in African Americans, people of African ancestry, Hispanics and Latinos, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders.

UPDON has NDEP tools available on its website to learn more about your risk for type 2 diabetes and steps you can take to delay or prevent this disease. Visit www.diabetesinmichigan.org to find the following:

-Diabetes Risk Test. This tool asks simple questions about weight, age, family history and other potential risks for pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes.

-NDEP’s “Family Health History Quiz” asks four true/false questions to help people better understand their family health history of diabetes

-NDEP’s “4 Questions You Should Ask Your Family about Diabetes and Family Health History” offers ways to help you talk with your family about your family’s health history of diabetes.

Call UPDON at (906) 228-9203 or dial 2-1-1 to find a diabetes educator in your area. The U.P. Diabetes Outreach Network, which is administered by UPCAP.

MDCH receives grant to fight type-2 diabetes

LANSING – The Michigan Diabetes Prevention and Control Program within the Michigan Department of Community Health has been selected as one of eight state programs to receive a grant of $134,380 to fight prediabetes and the spread of adult onset diabetes known as type-2 diabetes. The Michigan Diabetes Prevention and Control Program was selected by the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors through funding provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Gov. Snyder has called attention to the health of Michigan residents by asking the Michigan Department of Community Health to address obesity,” said James K. Haveman, director of the MDCH. “One of the ways we have done so is by paying close attention to the chronic diseases associated with obesity. Prediabetes can be devastating, and this opportunity further allows Michigan to address this obesity epidemic and improve the lives of Michigan residents.”

The Michigan diabetes program was selected because along with its community partners, the program is able to help people with prediabetes participate in lifestyle change programs such as the National Diabetes Prevention Program. The National DPP helps participants make healthy lifestyle changes, losing 5-7 percent body weight and being physically active at least 150 minutes a week, which have been shown to reduce the chance of developing type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent.

CDC estimates 79 million people in America have prediabetes, a condition of elevated blood sugar that often leads to type-2 diabetes within a few years. In Michigan, its estimated more than 2.6 million adults have prediabetes. The CDC also projects national efforts to prevent type-2 diabetes could save $5.7 billion in health care costs and prevent 885,000 cases of type 2 diabetes in the next 25 years.